1. Field
This disclosure is generally related to the field of printers, and more particularly related to registration of continuous medium in a printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, on-demand printing frequently involves an on-demand printer printing specific information or content on a print medium, such as a label, and may involve applying the printed medium to an item. In some situations, the item might be one item in a series of items such as an item in an assembly line. In that case, the on-demand printer and the assembly line may be synchronized such that the printed medium can be applied to the item as the item passes the on-demand printer. The print medium used in an on-demand printer may be a continuous medium such as a roll of labels carried on a releasable liner. The printed labels may be peeled from the releasable liner and adhered to items. However, if the continuous medium, such as a label roll, is not properly registered with the on-demand printer, then content printed on the labels of the continuous medium may be misaligned or some or all of the content that should have been printed on a label might not be printed on the label, e.g., the printed content might extend across labels.
In addition, there are many varieties of print media including many types of continuous print media. For example, label rolls may come in different sizes, or they may come with different face stock, or they come with a wireless communication device such as Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) device. Typically, an on-demand printer is manually configured to use one variety of continuous medium and then re-configured to use another variety of continuous medium. For example, the on-demand printer might be configured to use one type of marker such as ink, ribbon, or the like on a first face stock and a different type of maker on a second face stock.
There is a need for a printer that may sense a print medium and automatically reconfigure internal settings. In addition, there exists a need for a printer that may properly register a continuous medium, and similarly, there exists a need for a printer that may maintain proper registration of a continuous medium.